The NPR Politics Podcast - In Huge Upset, Doug Jones Wins Election In Alabama

Episode Date: December 13, 2017

For the first time in 25 years, Alabama has elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate. Doug Jones beat Republican Roy Moore, who had been dogged by accusations of sexual misconduct, in the state's special election yesterday. This episode: host/congressional reporter Scott Detrow, congressional correspondent Susan Davis, political editor Domenico Montanaro and national correspondent Debbie Elliott in Alabama. Email the show at [e-mail]. Find and support your local public radio station at npr.org/stations.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey, it's Scott Detrow. And I'm Tamara Keith. And before we get to the show, we just want to let you know that we are doing a live show here in D.C. in January. It's at the Warner Theater and it's called President Trump One Year In. If you're in town, if you're nearby, we'd love for you to join us. You'll want to be indoors in January watching us do our live podcast. It's true.

Last time we did it, it was a nice, warm, cozy environment. Great time. And what could possibly be a nice, warm, cozy environment. Great time. And what could possibly be a better holiday gift than hanging out with us? You can learn more and get tickets at nprpresents.org. That's nprpresents, all one word, dot org. It's going to be a lot of fun. We'll all be there. We'd love for you to be there, too. Hey, folks, this is Terry Houston from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, outside my polling place, just voted in the Alabama special election for Senate. This podcast was recorded at 1240 on Wednesday, December 13th, the day after that election. Things may have changed by the time you hear it. Keep up with all of NPR's political coverage at NPR.org, the NPR One app, or on your local NPR station.

Hey there, it's the NPR One app, or on your local NPR station. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast here, one day ahead of our weekly roundup with a special episode. Why? Because a Democrat has been elected to the Senate from the state of Alabama, capping off a high-profile special election that was at the center of the national political discussion for the last month. How did Doug Jones defeat Roy Moore, and what does it mean going forward? that was at the center of the national political discussion for the last month. How did Doug Jones defeat Roy Moore and what does it mean going forward? We will try to figure that all out.

I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress for NPR. I'm Susan Davis. I also cover Congress. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, political editor. So guys, we said leading into this episode, what would be more remarkable, Roy Moore winning based on all the allegations against him or Doug Jones winning based on the fact he is a Democrat in Alabama? Looks like it was the latter. Domenico, what were you thinking in the 10 o'clock hour as Jones crept up on Moore and crept up on Moore and suddenly jumped past him in the returns? Well, I thought he was going to win at that point.

I was sort of double and triple checking my numbers as I was looking at Jefferson County, where Birmingham is. And at that point, Jones was up about 50,000 votes in Jefferson County. And there was less than half the vote in. He was down by about 23,000 votes or so. And it looked like, OK, if that tracked, he could make up or net about 50,000 more votes. He wound up netting about 80,000, 83,000 total or so in the county. There was still a lot of vote left in Mobile, still a lot of vote left in Montgomery. And there wasn't a whole heck of a lot of more areas. And he was underperforming President Trump, for example, in Shelby County, which is right outside Birmingham. And it looked like at that moment Jones was going to win. And sure enough,

it wound up creeping up. Domenico, just before the election, you, myself, and national correspondent Debbie Elliott previewed this race. We got a ton of positive response from Debbie Elliott joining us. Makes sense to bring her back into the conversation, doesn't it? Let's do it. Debbie, you're with us from Alabama. Glad to be back. Did you get much sleep last night? About three and a half hours, not too bad. That's pretty good for a big election, I guess. Right.

So everything had to go right for Doug Jones, and it looks like everything did go right for him. What was the combination that let him win as a Democrat? Well, you know, you talked a little bit about Shelby County. I think that that's an interesting place to start because it was in some of the suburbs of the big cities of Birmingham and Huntsville and Mobile where you started to see them turn from deep red to pink. And I'm guessing that's because of women, right? White women. And then you had this huge African American voter turnout. And I think that's what really made the difference. And then you had this huge African-American voter turnout. And I think

that's what really made the difference. And it was interesting, as I was driving around the state election day, I was listening to all kinds of radio stations. And there were Doug Jones ads still playing on election day. I didn't hear any more ads. And I listened to a wide variety of radio stations. And then on some of the African American radio stations, Doug Jones was actually still doing interviews day of talking to popular DJs about why this race was important. And so I think he really targeted and tried to energize black voters. And, you know, thinking about that in retrospect, you know, this is the state that gave the nation the Voting Rights Act, right? So last night, there was this huge celebration among

African American activists and voting rights activists sort of seeing this come full circle. What I found really fascinating about that was when I started to look at the numbers and the exit polls coming in, I wasn't sure what to make of them because it said that 30% of overall turnout was African-American. And I thought, wow, that is a huge number. And it jumped out at me because in 2008, when President Obama ran for the first time as the first black president, African-Americans made up 29% of the electorate, but still Obama lost by 21 points. So there had to be something else that wound up happening in the state. And when Debbie talks about the suburbs in those places like Huntsville and Birmingham and Mobile, that's where a lot of the vote seems to have come from. And one

of the things that I looked at last night that was fascinating was it wasn't Republican crossovers as much as it was independents. And when you look at independents nationally, and this probably tracks to Alabama, a lot of independents are actually former Republicans who don't want to say that they're Republicans. And you know that because in 2012, for example, Mitt Romney won independents nationally by five points, but President Obama still won reelection. So when you look inside those numbers in this election, Doug Jones won independence by eight points. Doesn't sound like a lot, but look at the shift.

Mitt Romney won independence by 52 points, 52 points. That's a 60 point shift. So a lot of those folks, white voters, for example, Jones won 30% of whites, doesn't sound like a lot, but Obama in that 08 election only won 15%. So he got double and a whole lot more independents. You know, what I think we also have to think about is that some of those, whether they be Republicans who were disgruntled and voted or the independents, part of Doug Jones' appeal to that part of his coalition was this whole Alabama's image is at stake here, people. We're at this crossroads. Everybody has been looking

down on Alabama for a long time. We're the bottom on all of these things, whether it be education or health care or economic development. It's time for us to change that dynamic. And that really worked. That resonated with people, particularly people who were a little bit frustrated with Roy Moore because, you know, he had been a controversial figure even before these allegations came up that were so prominent in this race. You know, he had been removed from office twice. He never was really in the fold of the Republican Party like other candidates were. He always kind of kept himself separate. And I think this was a chance for Doug Jones to say, hey, give me a chance and listen to me. And I think I can change things for Alabama. You know, I think that politics is zero sum game. A win is a win is a win. Doug Jones winning in Alabama is a huge deal for

Democrats. It gives Republicans an even narrower majority in the Senate. It's now a win is a win. Doug Jones winning in Alabama is a huge deal for Democrats. It gives Republicans an even narrower majority in the Senate. It's now a 51-49 Senate. But I'm still not convinced that the story of Alabama is the story of a strengthened Democratic Party as much as it is the fact that a Democrat ran against the worst candidate for statewide office I have ever covered. Right. I mean, Roy Moore was as bad as you could possibly find for a candidate to run. So in this scenario, you know, if Luther Strange, the incumbent senator, had ultimately won a primary, I'm not sure we'd be sitting here having this conversation, right? The contours of Alabama are still overwhelmingly in the favor of the Republican Party and of

conservatives. It's just that Roy Moore wasn't really either one of those. He wasn't really a Republican. He really wasn't even a conservative. He was sort of a Christian nationalist with facing allegations of some of the worst behavior that society can't tolerate. That's a good point. But Sue, I feel like so much of the conversation over the last year has been the idea of tribalism and that no matter who the nominee is, in the end, nine out of 10 people from their party are going to vote for that person. So it seems like if anything, we've kind of tested the limits of that. Maybe we found the limit. Maybe we have found the limit. Yeah. Yeah. The lesson here is the lesson here is you can go too far with a candidate. Right. We know what the limit is. And I think we saw that happen, like the moment when that kind of crystallized, I think, was when Richard Shelby, Alabama's senior senator and a Republican,

was saying, I wrote in somebody else. I cannot support Roy Moore. I mean, I think that was pretty telling. I will say I've talked to senators inside the Capitol today, both Democrats and Republicans. I talked to Dick Durbin of Illinois, he's a Democrat, Susan Collins of Maine. And one of the things I'm hearing a lot from senators is they are united in giving Richard Shelby a lot of credit that his decision to come out the Sunday before the election, although I would note he had been saying that he wasn't going to vote for Roy Moore for weeks, but to go on national television, which he rarely does, to make the point that he would not vote for Moore was sort of a critical factor because Shelby is very popular still inside

Alabama. And Dick Durbin said that he gave him a lot of credit for being on the right side of history. So, Sue, you talked about the conversation inside the Capitol. We're going to talk about that in a second. But first, before we say goodbye to Debbie, Debbie, first, let's just take a listen for a moment to Doug Jones declaring victory last night after the AP called this race for him. I will tell you, tonight is a night for rejoicing. Because as Dr. King said, as Dr. King liked to quote, the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice. Tonight, tonight, ladies and gentlemen, tonight, tonight in this time, in this place, you helped bend that moral art a little closer to that justice and you did it.

That moral art, not only was it bent more, not only was its aim truer, but you sent it right through the heart of the great state of Alabama in doing so. Debbie, you covered this race start to finish. In the end, what's like the one moment that sticks out in your head from this Moore primary against Strange and then this very odd general election of Moore and Doug Jones? Well, I'll tell you what stands out to me, and this is even before all the craziness started. The Alabama Association of County Commissioners had a meeting, and I moderated a panel there. And the candidates were invited to speak, and this was before the Republican runoff. Well, the Republicans didn't show up, but Doug Jones showed up,

and he gave this long speech. And he told them, I promise you, I'll be back here in a year and I will be telling you what it's like to have been serving in the U.S. Senate. And he made this appeal to them, and this would have been an audience probably leaning Republican, but of county leaders, elected officials at the county level. And he really talked to them about bridging this divide that we have in politics nationally. And, you know, I listened to the speech, I recorded the speech, I didn't think much about it, because I thought of Doug, you know, and I interviewed him afterwards. And I said, you know, Doug Jones, a white Democrat, is extinct in the South. And he said, no, we're not.

And I'm here to prove that. And I guess I was wrong. And I think that that is what is standing out to me, that you just never know what's going to happen in a race. And we sometimes build our little, this is impossible here and this is impossible there. And it all comes down to the candidates. So that's Jones. What about Roy Moore? As of right now, he hasn't conceded yet, right? Right. He did not concede last night, and he is saying that the votes are still to come in

and that he wasn't ready to give in yet. He said this was in God's hands. And that's what we've got to do is wait on God and let this process play out. I know it's late. We can't wait and have everybody wait after 11 o'clock. But the votes are still coming in, and we're looking at that. May God bless you as you go on. May he give you a safe journey. And thank you for coming tonight. It's not over, and it's going to take some time. Thank you. The thing about Roy Moore is that he continues to use these moments when any other politician would seem to be, you know, this would be it. This would be their political obituary. He seems to rise from those,

you know, twice knocked off of the state Supreme Court, yet able to appeal nationally to Christian conservatives to raise money, to gain support, and come back again. I spoke with his brother, Jerry Moore, last night, and here's how he sees it. If he don't win, it's God's will for him not to win. But I can tell you this, I've known him, we grew up together, one year apart, and I'm just going to tell you right now, every time it looked like the door closed on him, a greater door opened. So the question now is, what are we going to hear from Roy Moore once this race is said and done and behind us and Doug Jones is in the Senate? You know, Alabama does have a governor's race next

year. And Roy Moore has even in the past talked about running for president. It does not feel like this is the last we have heard from Roy Moore. I don't think so. Well, Debbie Elliott, thanks for all of your coverage of this race. Thanks for talking to us on the podcast a couple times this week. Sure thing. Bye, y'all. So Sue, before we get back into the idea of how exactly this happened in Alabama, as results were coming in last night, we were talking about the fact that Republicans were planning to have a meeting this morning to deal with Senator-elect Roy Moore if he was coming to Washington. Obviously, that meeting was not needed. What is the mood like among Republican senators today in the Capitol? It's not as bad as you may think, because I think

that there are a lot of Republicans who, while they would always rather have a seat in Congress, see Roy Moore's defeat as a bit of a blessing, that had he won and been elected to the Senate, that he would have been such an unpredictable wildcard and such a distraction that it just wasn't good for the party long term. I talked to Susan Collins this morning, who was sort of funny in thanking Alabama voters for their wisdom and for doing the right thing, and a bit of relief that he didn't win. I also think that in terms of real-time impact, at the same time today, Republicans in the House and Senate announced that they have a deal in principle on their tax legislation, which is something that I think that loss in Alabama has focused the minds

inside this building on their agenda and on getting that agenda done before they have a one seat slimmer majority. And you have Democrats saying we should wait for Doug Jones to show up to vote on that. It doesn't seem like there's any chance that would happen, right? It seems really unlikely. The argument that Democrats are trying to make is that they should wait until Doug Jones is sworn in, citing what they call a precedent when Scott Brown won the special election in Massachusetts for the seat when Ted Kennedy died, and they had a special election and Scott Brown won. There's a couple of significant differences between these two scenarios. One, I don't know if anybody can argue with a straight face that the Alabama Senate race was a referendum on taxes. I don't think that that was what people saw that this

race was about. Whereas the Massachusetts Senate race, which I covered, was very much about the Affordable Care Act and about health care politics. And also when Scott Brown took over that seat, it lowered the Democratic majority from 60 votes to 59 votes, effectively ending the Democratic supermajority and their ability to move health care legislation without Republican support. Republicans are not using a similar process. They're using a process to specifically get around that filibuster. And the point that they've also made is that, you know, lame duck senators cast tough votes all the time and lame duck sessions are not unusual. And having Luther Strange here to cast that vote on taxes is what they intend to do.

And if they do have a deal, as they said today, they are on track to pass that bill next week. So it's not just taxes, though. It's everything going forward. There have been so many high profile votes this year where Mike Pence had to come in and break a 50-50 tie. We've said six billion times that Republicans can only lose two votes. If they lose three, they can't get it passed. Now they can only lose one vote and still pass it. I mean, how big of a deal is 51-49 versus 52-48? I mean, it's a huge deal. Every single vote counts in the Senate. And of course, we've been using that math because that is what applies to that special reconciliation process they've been using to try and do things like repeal the Affordable Care Act and that they're using now to pass tax legislation. But next year and on the whole, you still need 60 votes to do anything in the Senate,

to move legislation through regular order, through the regular legislative process. And that number just went from getting eight Democrats to agree with you to nine Democrats to agree with you. The question mark around Jones, and he doesn't have a voting record we can look to, is what kind of senator is he going to be? If he is someone that plans on running for reelection in Alabama in 2020, he probably can't be a super progressive liberal in the Senate. That is not representative of what Alabama is. So he is one of those red state Democrats that could potentially be Democrats that have incentives to work with the Trump administration and Republicans, depending on what they want the agenda to be next year. Do we have any sense when it will become a 5149 Senate? It seems like there's

some uncertainty right now as to when Jones would be sworn in and replaced Strange. The election is not expected to be certified finally until the week of Christmas. So the realistic expectation as of right now is that Jones will be sworn in when the new session of the next Congress starts in January. Actually, side note that we should just mention while we're talking about all of this. We have a new Minnesota senator today, don't we? Yeah, we do. Lieutenant Governor Tina Smith, who's there to replace Al Franken. So while Democrats have a seat now that's through 2020 in Alabama, of all places, Republicans might actually wind up having a target in Minnesota, of all places, even though Minnesota is known for its liberal roots,

it went by less than two points for Hillary Clinton. You know, President Trump has made a lot of inroads there. And it's actually been trending much more Republican in the last several elections. One of the names I'm already hearing in Minnesota of someone that Republicans would like to consider a run is former Governor Tim Pawlenty, who could potentially make that a very competitive race. But of course, that switch from Franken to Smith does not change the numbers that we're talking about here. Getting back into the Senate and getting back into this Alabama race. So you got to the one immediate effect and that it's suddenly a much smaller margin for Republicans. But the other question is like, what can we infer about next year from this? Sounds like Republicans are

saying we can infer that maybe you shouldn't have a candidate who's accused of sexual misconduct with teenage girls. But Democrats, on the other hand, are making these big, broad statements about how this validates their mandate. Let's listen to Chuck Schumer talking to reporters this morning. He kind of lays out all the reasons why Democrats feel like this is another sign in their favor. So you put all that together, base being energized, millennials overwhelmingly Democratic, suburbs swinging back to the Democrats, and it means that things are looking good for us. Domenico, how much of that do you buy? Well, you know, Chuck Schumer is a former head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

So he's somebody who does understand politics and understands the kind of message that you want to try to push to try to get candidates to run. And I think that's one big piece of what happened last night is that you can now have people from the DSCC go out to other parts of the country and say, come on, Doug Jones won in Alabama. If he could win in Alabama, you can win in Ohio or Michigan or wherever else they're trying to recruit candidates. Sue, the suburban vote was was an interesting storyline. Debbie mentioned the fact that that black voters turned out in droves. You had the Roy Moore storyline. You had the President Trump storyline. But Roy Moore and the allegations against him were like the the hyper end of this conversation that's been happening on politics and all levels about sexual assault and

sexual misconduct. Do you think there are any takeaways here on how much Democrats should try to focus on that in other campaigns? I don't know the answer to that, but I do think it raises the question because these sexual harassment allegations and this national conversation and the congressional response is still happening in real time. It doesn't end with this election. And one of the questions I have is, you know, does it change the way both parties will look at any additional lawmakers that may face these allegations? I also wonder, there are two sitting members of Congress right now in the House, Republican Blake Fahrenthold of Texas and Democrat Ruben Kiwin from Nevada communications director over those allegations of whether there's just going to be no tolerance for incumbents or candidates in this climate who are facing allegations, regardless of the merits or the substance of them. I think Democrats'

decision to essentially push out Al Franken, followed by Doug Jones's victory in a state fueled by voter disgust over these allegations. Add into that just, I believe it was last week, time moves at such a crazy pace these days of House Republicans essentially forcing out Trent Franks of Arizona over other kind of allegations, that there is just an increasing feeling that zero tolerance needs to be the standard. And that if there is one thing increasing feeling that zero tolerance needs to be the standard. And that if there is one thing voters are telling both parties is that they have no time for candidates who are facing any kind of allegations and whether they have been, you know, figured out in the courts or not figured out in the courts, that they can just do better.

I hate to break it to you that that happened less than a week ago. Trent Franks. Yeah, less than a week. That's what I mean. Like this is this. And I do I will say that I do think there is an equal amount of political sensitivity to voter agitation about this. I really do think that leadership in both parties get it rank and file get it, which is why I wonder if one of the impacts of Alabama up here is that leadership is looking at lawmakers like Kewin and like Farenthold and saying like, look, politics is a team sport and you are no longer effective members of this team. Yeah. Let's listen to what House Speaker Paul Ryan said about this generally today.

The allegations are far too credible. My own views are well known on this. And I just think that they didn't want to be represented by this. And I don't think that the party wants to be represented by this. And so't think that that but the party wants to be represented by this and so i see that it's more of a one-off because of roy moore in his baggage verses uh... some trend that's out there i really think it was a sort of unique to him and his problems

and i alabama by and large you know look at the dick shelby vote though the writings devoted for some other republican i just don't think they want to be represented by that. And they didn't want that to represent the party. Domenico, I mean, there's always been the gender split of women, by and large, as a voting bloc, preferring Democrats to Republicans. Last year, you saw a lot of Republican women, particularly in the suburbs, in the end, sticking with Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton. Is there a sense that that could continue to erode and go in the Democrats' favor? big victory until Virginia, really, because they were expected to win in New Jersey. And Virginia was seen as sort of a centrist campaign. But everyone had been saying, OK, where is the Scott Brown type of victory if Democrats want to show that there's a wave coming? And remember, there

was a wave in 2010 with the Tea Party. You know, is there a resist wave that is kind of looming offshore? I think that this race in Alabama, while Paul Ryan wants to dismiss it and is doing his job in trying to dismiss it as a one-off problem for Roy Moore, this Republican in the race, Mitt Romney, won women by 12 points. Last night, Jones won them by 16 points. Women, African-Americans, they are going to feel like if they Republicans nervous as they go into a midterm where all the historical precedents say they will lose seats, particularly in the House, is that one of the hopes that Republicans have had is that the base loves Donald Trump so much that he is still much more popular than anybody in the Washington establishment when you look at the polling, but that that popularity generated towards Donald Trump doesn't trickle down the ballot, that those same base voters didn't listen to Trump when he endorsed Luther Strange originally in the primary, right? They rejected his recommendation there. Alabamans rejected Roy Moore last night. So the idea that Trump supporting you or Trump getting involved in your race was a hope that I think a lot of Republicans had going into the midterms that he could really benefit them in their races. And I think one of the things we're learning is that that that transference of popularity doesn't really work down the ballot, particularly among Republicans who still see Donald Trump and the Republican Party as two siloed different brands. It was interesting, though, because the exit polls last night showed Trump with a split, not what you would expect. It was

48 approve, 48 disapprove when Trump did get above 60 percent in the general election there in 2016. You know, and think about just when we think about like the caliber of candidate that Roy Moore was and the problem that he presented for the party. Think about the chess beating that you would have heard from Trump and Bannon and that wing, what that would have sounded like today. You know, to Sue's point about Roy Moore as a candidate, The Onion yesterday had posted a story that the headline was, Baffled DNC Plant Roy Moore, Not Sure What Else He could have done to defame Republican Party. I will say on Bannon, too, like, I do think there is a culture of politics even beyond him that we have a tendency to sort of overstate the influence of political strategists as sort of these like election masterminds. And it generally is like to the victor go the spoils. So he was

the political strategist for a winning campaign. So he's seen as this sort of like genius. I think it's similar to how people like David Plouffe in the Obama orbit were viewed or Karl Rove during the Bush years. I think his influence is a bit overstated. And I also think the question for Bannon's influence is he's influential because donors will give him money, right, that he can raise money to get involved in these races. If one of the elections of Alabama is donors and the big money in the party look at it and say, we are cutting off our nose despite our face, does that spigot to people like Steve Bannon dry up? And that would pretty much limit his effectiveness. And I'm certain that that is the pitch that people like Mitch McConnell are making to those same donors. One minor interesting thing, just to note, I don't think we need to talk about it much, but given how much attention has been paid to Trump's Twitter feed this week and the way that he can kind of viciously and nastily go after people, I thought it was interesting that

after the race is called for Doug Jones, even before Roy Moore conceded because he still hasn't, Trump did tweet about it. And he was kind of gracious to Doug Jones, as gracious as I guess he's going to be. He mentioned the high number of write-ins, but he quickly went out there and congratulated somebody in a race that he had a lot of personal investment in and lost. He also tweeted today, which it sounded like he handed over his Twitter account to Mitch McConnell, that if last night's election proved anything, it proved we need to put up great Republican candidates to increase the razor thin margins in both the House and the Senate. One, I do not believe that the president typed that himself. And two, that is the worldview of the Senate Republican establishment, that we need to put

up the best candidates, even if they are not the candidates that the Trump wing of the party ultimately would love to have. They're the ones that will win in November. I think one other thing just to end on is that the Democrats had a lot of self-doubt all year, to put it incredibly mildly. I think you could say it in a much different way. That's a huge piece of this, right? Yeah. The DNC had a huge shift in turnover, new head of the DNC. They got a lot of grief for most of this year for not raising much money, for not really seeming to have a plan.

And the year ends with them winning up and down Virginia, almost taking back the House of Delegates, winning the governor's race there. And now after a year long of conversation about how the Democrats are this coastal elite party, they have a Senate seat in Alabama. I think it's kind of an interesting tonal shift in the last two months of an otherwise down year for Democrats. Totally. And I think going into 2018, as we get close to wrapping up the year, Democrats are really emboldened and they certainly have a path to winning a majority of the House in the midterm elections. History is certainly on their side in terms of the number of seats that

they tend to pick up. And what Doug Jones also did last night is he cracked open a door that leads to a potential path for Democrats to put the Senate in play that just simply did not exist before the Alabama Senate race. So one last thing, we were talking about the tax vote earlier. As we were potting, our other congressional reporter, Kelsey Snell, was reporting that the conference committee that has assembled to get the House tax bill and the Senate tax bill on the same page appears to have reached a big picture agreement. This allows Republicans to keep on that path they had laid out of releasing this bill publicly Friday at the latest and then voting on it early next week. That is something we will spend a lot of time talking about tomorrow in our weekly roundup.

As for now, that is a wrap on this Alabama episode. Again, we'll be back in your feed just tomorrow, so not too long to wait. As we head into the holiday season and the end of the year, please do consider taking the time to donate whatever you can to your local public radio station and tell them we sent you. Michael Montanaro, political editor. Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. © transcript Emily Beynon